Primer by Karen Morris

      The sweet hour of prime. -Milton

 

Lesson one was stitched on skin

Like the carved flowers of my bodice.

There was more than one promise, love,

I have melted many, times twenty—

Exploded like stars and cross-pollinated for fun.

 

I was aroused by stitchery then.

Each time bound by rings

I opposed two involutes,

Fell into deep vats of indigo

And rinsed my flesh in the wind.

 

What should I say when you ask

If I would do it again—

But stretch this silk by piercing,

Flame, and open to the vinery.

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Karen Morris is a poet and psychoanalyst in private practice in Narrowsburg, NY, with specialization in creativity and addictions. Her first book of poems, CATACLYSM and Other Arrangements (2014, Three Stones Press) received The Gradiva Award for Poetry (2015, NAAP). Her poems have appeared in The Stillwater Review, Paterson Literary Review, Tanka Society of America, About Place Journal and others. She is the co-founder of Two Rivers Zen Community in Narrowsburg, NY.